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What a fabulous question, allowing such room for different opinions and time-frames!  I would have not been allowed to do either, for I am a woman and, therefore, it would have been unthinkable for me to join.  I most likely would have ended up trying to farm my own land as my husband went off fighting for the doomed South.  I have thought a lot about this subject over the years and have decided that I would have been a member of the "Underground Railroad," carefully shuttling slaves through my Southern home to freedom in the North, . . . while secretly paying my own workers who would have been free to work for us or not.  However, I know myself enough to know that I wouldn't have been a highly "vocal" abolitionist out of fear.  It always saddens me to think of the truth behind that last idea. 

I would do neither. I'm from Tennessee, which was the last state to leave the Union and the first to rejoin. I'd stay right where I was and try to help people as best as I could. From the little I know of my family history, most of my ancestors were not slave owners. There is one distant relative who was a colonel in the Confederate Army, but his side of the family considered my side of the family as the "black sheep." Even though my relatives would have fought for the South, my heart would be freeing the slaves and ensuring their human rights. So I'd find some way to work "underground."

In 1861, as a white Kentucky farmer who never owned a slave, I'd have fought for the Confederacy. 

My choice in this is based solely on states’ rights.

Southern financial institutions were paying the debts of failing northern banks.  Southern banks paid higher interest rates on loans made with northern banks.  A high tariff for importing and exporting goods was instituted, primarily aimed at southern states that were dependant on imported goods, and as such were penalized for this need.  Due to the population imbalance of that time and the resulting loss of political influence of southern states, I’d have felt helpless knowing my state would not be properly represented and that my government was indifferent to the needs of the southern states.